Trevor Halford wants to put 2025 behind him.
“My job is not to look in the rear-view mirror about what’s happened and try to cast judgment on any of that,” the B.C. Conservative interim leader said in a year-end interview with Black Press Media.
Instead, Halford wants to use the opportunity of an upcoming leadership race to grow the party, even though he does not plan on running himself.
“My job is to show some stability within this caucus and within this party and allow a very good leadership race to happen, which will grow this party and put us in a position to succeed,” he said.
The Conservatives began 2025 with 44 sitting members in the legislature. While the party failed to fully capitalize on its momentum heading into the previous October’s election and gain enough seats to form government, it still managed its strongest showing in generations.
This “big tent” party brought together former B.C. Liberals with modern alt-right conservatives, and was almost immediately beset by infighting. Eventually, five MLAs would leave or be booted from the caucus, and former leader John Rustad would step down.
“It definitely wasn’t enjoyable,” Halford said of the caucus chaos.
He now wants to shake off the baggage. That could be difficult, considering the lingering resentment over accusations of rigged voting at the March annual general meeting and during the summer party leadership review.
Nevertheless, Halford says he plans to “look ahead.”
One of his first moves was to head to Ottawa to meet with federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Though the federal and provincial Conservatives are not the same political party, Halford says they share the same values. He would like the two sides to get closer.
“We are separate from the federal Conservatives, but there is a lot of stuff that we share that we’re in alignment on,” Halford said.
A different approach
Complaints about Rustad’s leadership style generally focused on his inability to function as a diplomat within his party, and the vengeance meted out on the people within the party he perceived as enemies. This peaked with him kicking out Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko and searching members’ phones during a caucus meeting.
It appears, at least publicly, that Halford intends to take a more amiable approach. Whereas Rustad presented some hard edges and drew hard lines, Halford projects an affable persona.
He’ll quickly tell you he’s a huge Hall and Oates fan. He’s got a picture of Elvis on his office wall. He likes to talk sports — “I am very well-positioned in fantasy football this year,” he says.
When he is away from home in Surrey to work at the legislature, he ensures he takes along his grandfather’s teddy bear. It’s more than 100 years old. He keeps it with him because he says his grandfather was his “compass.”
“That bear goes with me everywhere,” he said. “When I go on the road, that bear comes with me. When I’m here, the bear is here. When I was in Ottawa, the bear came with me.”
These softer edges might be why Halford was able to emerge as the party’s interim leader when it looked like the caucus might split in two.
But now he must settle in and forge a working version of the Official Opposition – not an easy task considering the caucus is still somewhat divided ideologically.
“We really do have almost two different parties existing within the shell of the B.C. Conservatives,” said Stewart Prest, a University of British Columbia political science lecturer.
And it doesn’t help that Rustad is now openly criticizing Halford, recently saying in the Nuanced podcast with Aaron Pete that Halford is a B.C. Liberal “through and through,” and that he is only pretending to be a Conservative.
What’s next
As Halford looks to move on from the turmoil, he will need to grab the reins in a way that shines a spotlight on the government failures and away from internal party discord. Depending on how the leadership race develops, this could prove challenging.
The party has not yet even figured out how that race will be organized, and Halford expects he will still be the interim leader going into the next legislative session in February.
This is an opportunity for the party to find its identity, says Royal Roads political communications Prof. David Black.
“They’ve got an opportunity to let the factions speak for themselves,” Black said. “To decide what kind of party they are going to be.”
Halford’s opening salvo as interim leader focused on the uncertainty created by the latest Indigenous rights court rulings. He immediately called a press conference to urge the premier to recall the legislature and repeal the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which an appeals court recently found could retroactively impact all B.C. laws.
“I think we should have been in the legislature last week, doing a full repeal of DRIPA,” he said.
His next biggest priority is the health-care system. He said the thing that stuck out to him the most from the past year is the long wait times to access healthcare, which he sees in his constituency and elsewhere.
“British Columbians right now cannot adequately access healthcare,” he said.
Despite his desire for change, an early election is not on Halford’s wish list at this point.
“Do we want one? Absolutely not,” he said. “We don’t. And I’m not going to bait this government into an election.”